We shall begin with the most obvious of sets necessary in the construction of your bustling LEGO Metropolis. The Modular Buildings are some of the best LEGO Sets released in recent times for AFOLs and MOCers alike. With them as the center piece to any great LEGO Metropolis you can't go wrong.

There is rich detailing, modular construction and compatibility with all LEGO City and Town sets previously released and on-going. The Town Hall will be the first item on the list simply because with it you can centralize everything around a hub that consists of our Modular Buildings and other centralizing friendly sets.

What is a LEGO Metropolis without establishments such as this one for your LEGO Citizens to shop at? The Grand Emporium is a must own item to create the Ultimate LEGO Metropolis.

Of course this is simply my opinion, yours may vary, personally though I feel that many LEGO AFOLs and MOCers agree with this basic assessment. However this Grand Emporium could use a few extra MOC builds to populate the merchandise within it. As it is fairly bare bones when it comes to the interiors. Perhaps two of them built together would make the Ultimate Emporium. (If you can afford such a thing. Personally I'll be lucky if I can just get one or two of the Modulars before LEGO Discontinues them all.)

A purveyor of fine pets, that is also what any good LEGO Metropolis needs. With this Pet Shop located in the centre of your LEGO Town/City display you can't go wrong.

Also, the Modulars include living areas for your LEGO Mini-Figs, something that even buying thousands of Creator Houses wouldn't be able to fix. Every good Metropolis needs some high rise apartment buildings too.

The Cafe Corner is a must own item for any LEGO Metropolis, it is hard to come by now but it will enhance your display of the combined Modular Buildings and allow for more great looking highly detailed buildings to use in the centre of your LEGO Metropolis.

Every LEGO Metropolis needs a grocery store of some type, how else will your Mini-Figs get their daily vitamins and nutrients? Combine all of the Modular Buildings any way you like fo the ultimate display and play. As a bonus you could even get two of each and mix and match the modularily designed levels of the buildings to truly maximize the display of your LEGO Metropolis.

This vintage looking Fire House is part of the Modular Houses Theme, it also would be something typically located in the centre of any LEGO Metropolis, while newer and better fire stations have cropped up elsewhere, the original Town Fire House would still be in use and well maintained for LEGO Citizens living in the apartment complexes all around it.

This is the last of the Modular Houses created by LEGO so far, with it your display ultimately would be complete for your LEGO Metropolis. Once all of the sets are combined you'd be seeing something truly remarkable, but we're not finished yet. There are many more sets to add before LEGO Metropolis is complete.

This set from LEGO is a definite must have to create your ultimate LEGO Metropolis, surrounded by the Modular Houses the Town Plan would fit in quite nicely, and it includes a few items that are necessary to flesh out the LEGO Metropolis with buildings that aren't just Emergency Rescue based.

In the US, this set was exclusive to Wal-Mart; similarly in the UK to John Lewis stores.

Bricklist notes

There are many things to take into consideration when building your ULTIMATE LEGO METROPOLIS... Forgive me, a moment of weakness. Anyway, these things to consider are the following:

1) How Many LEGO Police Officers do you want in your Metropolis?2) How Many LEGO Police, Fire, Construction sets will you be using?3) Which sets have the best vehicles, Mini-Figs and extra Road Accessories for your Metropolis?4) Where should I draw the line so I don't over-populate my LEGO Metropolis with too many of a given Sub-Theme?

In making this BrickList I will try to adress some of these issues and try to curb my enthusiasm for all the great sets LEGO has produced over the years with Police, Fire, Rescue and other Sub-Themes.

That being said, this set from 2011 is on my BrickList because it features a few things that will be useful in populating my LEGO Metropolis. First of all it includes a few vehicles, a Police Car & Motorcycle as well as a Speeding Sports Car. Secondly, the tiny road addition model will attach nicely to one of the LEGO road plates from other sets, or additional road plates which can be purchased in bulk to attach all of your LEGO Town, City and other sets when building your Metropolis.

And thirdly, if that is a word, it includes a Female Police Officer, Female Mini-Figs are a pass automatically when building a Metropolis, any sets that can be useful and include Female Mini-Figs automatically are going to be added to the list. Because there aren't enough of them. Agree or Disagree, that's how this list will be.

All LEGO Cities need a bank, or banks. The Bank & Money Transfer is a great set to use, especially when it comes to populating a True LEGO Metropolis, by buying two of this set you can combine the Bank Model into a much larger looking Bank. Or you could just buy one and other bank sets to merge together (We'll get into that later.), however either way the Bank & Money Transfer is a must have set for a LEGO Metropolis.

In the US, this set was exclusive to Target. Also available from Shop At Home.

Bricklist notes

This set, along with many others from 2012 are excellent additions to your LEGO Metropolis, instead of relying solely on the Urban Division now your LEGO Metropolis can have a forest police force to protect the outlying suburbs, such as the farm(s) we'll be getting to adding shortly.

Although this doesn't feature a building of any type, LEGO Metropolis displays also need vehicles to help convey the many LEGO Denizens from one point to the other. Doubly so in an area of LEGO Metropolis that involves acres and acres of wilderness in between the residential and agricultural structures.

This item is a take it or leave it addition, on the one hand it features a unique extra, in the road barricade model, on the other is it really necessary? I believe personally that it is, but your idea of the Ultimate LEGO Metropolis might not want smaller unnecessary sets cluttering up your display.

I feel though that this is an ideal little set to help populate and include different display scenes for your LEGO Metropolis.

Again these sets are great for the rural areas where the larger police force located in the city proper might not be able to reach. This set includes some pretty fun looking vehicles to pad out your LEGO Metropolis Motorpool. (Not too many off-road monster trucks around.)

This is the Forest Police Station right? So it is a must have item for the ultimate LEGO Metropolis display. A few brown bears around help out when it comes to populating LEGO animals as well. You may want to buy extra bears from LEGO community sharing sites where sales of individual pieces can be made.

This is the last of the 2012 Forest Police sets that you need. Canine units are a must have for any Police Force, especially in a forested area, and with this set you get a means of transporting the canine unit to the scene of the crime, a criminal with his classy looking LEGO car and a little beehive invested tree.

To create and populate a large area of the LEGO Metropolis display with foliage you may want to consider MOCing your own trees and things, but adding little tree models from certain existing sets will also help lend a feeling of forest primeval to the display.

We haven't quite finised with Police sets just yet, so do try to bare with me. You may find that I will be including far too many Police Stations and the like in this BrickList, I however feel that certain things are necessary. Remember this isn't a BrickList for creating the best LEGO City or Town, it is for creating the Ultimate LEGO Metropolis, a Metropolis is something the size of New York or Los Angeles, they have a lot more sub-divisions and subruban areas and so require a lot more Police and other Emergency precincts.

However, when it comes to LEGO City Police stations I think, that for this type of display, you'll want to combine more than one station into a much larger Police Station/Headquarters. This set helps you start to do this.

Take 7237 and 7498 and combine them, either by MOCing or simply just by placing the two side-by-side. You'll start to see a much larger Police Headquarters forming, however the Ultimate LEGO Metropolis Police Precinct Headquarters isn't quite finished yet.

The 7237 Base Plate makes it difficult to combine with the other two sets, however with some creative MOCing and fiddling around you can have all three of the LEGO City Police Stations standing side by side, giving you multiple jail cells for the many criminals that populate LEGO Metropolis, a dedicated Police motorpool for parking your Police vehicles and multiple different offices. CSI, DEF, Homicide all of these areas exist in the Police Precincts around the world. And larger precincts have seperate offices for each of their different Crime Units.

LEGO hasn't given us a dedicated CSI Lab yet, but by combining Police Stations together you can make your own.

This Police Helicopter has a special landing zone in 7744, aside from combining stations grouping like-minded and add-on sets together is something you'll have to do when creating your Ultimate LEGO Metropolis. That's why LEGO Packaged and marketed them as companion pieces.

By taking this set and merging it with 7288 you can create a Rapid Response Mobile Police Force that can reach any sector of LEGO Metropolis. You may be getting sick of seeing all these LEGO Police sets by now, however I'm going to be through in this BrickList, and try to keep all sets from the same Sub-Theme together on the list. (So expect to see LEGO Town Police sets after LEGO City Police sets are finished.)

Again a canine unit is a must, many CSIs and other divisions utilize specially trained police dogs to help solve crimes and catch criminals. I mentioned DEF before, you may not know what that abbreviation means, but it stands for Drug Elimination Force. Not something you'd expect to see in a family friendly LEGO world. But that doesn't mean you can't include them as part of your LEGO Metropolis display if you prefer to aim for realisim.